matter worlds of potential, within various mundane substances, sean o’connell as utilised in the creation of a great many things, 2019 and herein explored through high voltage discharge imaging worlds of potential

Matter is a tricky thing to define, because it surrounds us. It makes up our bodies and is continually replenished by food and breath. Through matter, we encounter the world. We touch, taste, see - we build, cut, grind, bind and join. When we act in the world, we act upon matter - using tools that are made of matter. We build cities and houses to inhabit, weave and sew clothes to wear, manufacture cars to drive, and launch satellites of metal and glass to direct our vision from empty space - we bind matter into almost every aspect of our lives. In interacting with the world of matter, we are constantly negotiating new possibilities. Our use of matter allows us to realise and extend our needs and desires, through the natural qualities of various materials - qualities which are revealed through experience over time. We become familiar with materials - what they can do, where they are found, how they are processed, their natural tendencies, limits of strength and durability - we get to know them. With this familiarity we work them, with our hopes and desires, adjusting to the way these materials work. The qualities of a material not only determine what we can do with it, but give rise to new ideas and desires, possibilities expanding as the relationship of working deepens. This understanding, of processes and potentialities, is passed to other makers, down generations, through time and across “If you don’t understand what is earthen, how do you understand what is heavenly?” cultures. Ways of working become cultural, and whole periods of history are defined by - Anton Josef Kirchweger, The Golden Chain of Homer, 1781. dominant materials, such as bronze or iron. At an immediate and personal level, our direct connection with matter is sensual. The cold steel of the knife with which we slice our vegetables, the smooth pliant leather of our couch, the warm wooden panelling of our room. Our worlds are full of materials which lend their qualities to our lives, adapting our environment, enabling our needs, and extending our possibilities. Materials such as glass - used through history for optics and telescopes - have totally altered our understanding of reality. We have extended our vision through glass, incorporating it into the way we see the world. Through the use of matter, its qualities are folded into the fabric of our experience and our being.

Creating with matter - making - requires understanding and compromise. It is a relationship, and an action, based on many forms of knowledge. In this relationship, there is a fine line between a mutual exploration of possibility, and that of manipulation for a predetermined purpose. Manipulation of matter is centred on thinking about ourselves, of our immediate needs and desires, without respecting the materials being used, or their place in the greater environment. A mutual exploration creates a place of awareness and flexibility, where material qualities and human desires are allowed to dance with one another, opening new possibilities and furthering understanding. We tend to think that matter is there simply for our use, that the world is a blank slate ready for manipulation - it is there to be made useful. A particular myopia of power, perhaps. But however little respect we lend the material world, it is undeniable that its use is bound into our ways of living - the built environment completely encapsulates our existence. The materials of our houses and cars, our clothes and furniture, tools and machinery, all mediate our needs and extend our abilities. This relationship is further complicated by our immense global network of manufacturing and consumption, that separates us from any direct individual understanding of how we gather and process sometimes a jeweller, after all), forming them into small sample discs 30mm in diameter the materials that shape our experience of the world. and 3mm thick, gauging how they cope with this. The process was very sensual - the The vast scale of our modern endeavours makes it difficult to personally comprehend slippery silver dust of graphite coating my fingers, the pasty slurry of stone as it is cut how we manipulate the material world. Our minds and understanding have evolved for with a wet diamond blade, trails of glittering meteoric stardust falling off my jeweller’s the small sphere of action that we wield as individuals and small communities - our saw, the lingering smell of the sea as kelp dries in my workshop, the warmth and holy ability to interact directly with the world, physically. It is incomprehensible, to those who glow of gold as it grabs on the ridges of my file, fragrant huon pine dust floating gently have not experienced it first-hand, the monstrous scale of an open copper mine, or the in the air. Some materials have been bent beyond their will to make such a tight disc immense capacity of a large automated manufacturing plant. We have not yet caught shape, such as the reinforced concrete, of which fourteen attempts were made to keep up with the magnitude of our actions, intellectually or morally, and we become ever the steel from crumbling out of the concrete matrix. I am of course still learning to listen, more divorced from direct experience and understanding of these aspects of our lives, and to be flexible. the more our world develops. We prioritise efficiency, draw clear boundaries of personal The discharge images alongside these samples are an extension of my experience of (ir)responsibility, and create abstractions of what we know is real, in order to maintain making. The process of working with a material creates an understanding, and these the illusion of control at such grand scales. Throughout these simplifications of reality, images extend that. Through high voltage electrical signals exposed directly onto we relegate matter to the lowly mundane, and raise the value of thoughts and actions photographic emulsion, the materials reveal another side of themselves. The images above the materials through which they are realised. We run wild in pure systems portray a different perspective to that of light reflected off an outer surface, which our of thought, play games with global commerce, and create myths of desire through eye sees in everyday experience. Here, the electricity moves through matter, coursing endless consumer goods and feats of technological prowess. Amidst these audacious along internal structures, vibrating deep in the density of its substance - this is an undertakings, the role of matter is simply there to be of use - to enable our will. We energetic perspective. The flow of energy is revealed. This is beyond our natural senses create a rift between the material world and ourselves. A separation of understanding. - we do not usually apprehend matter like this. But this is how electricity apprehends So how do we reconnect with matter, and begin to build a healthy relationship with it? matter - this is a glimpse of another way of being. Of being electric. And there are of course many other ways of being. Through experiencing matter from different I make stuff, daily, in metal, and also in everything else I can find. It helps me feel perspectives, I hope to understand it better, and to expand myself - to blur my senses useful and whole, and allows me to see where I am. It helps me understand many with other worlds and ways of encountering them. If we can assimilate such alternate things. But I cannot fathom the complexities of large-scale mining or manufacture, perspectives at a cultural level - perspectives that are not centred purely on use and or the development of the consumer goods that surround me. I do not know how consumption - we may be better able to find balance and harmony as part of the to comprehend such immensity. In interacting with matter, however, at an intimate material world in which we live. and personal level, I become more aware of the richness of the world in which I live. I become aware of the basic nature of materials, and some of the intricate relations between them, and I become connected, and invested, in the world of which I am a part. I extend my senses, through making. I seek respect, in the process of making, which leads to greater truth and beauty, as in any relationship. In such small ways, I move towards bridging the divide between myself and matter. The materials contained in this book are the stuff with which we make things. Some are pure elements, some rough chaotic mixtures, complexly structured organics, or simple synthetic composites. There is no fundamental, basic state of matter, except what we decide - copper ore has gone through extensive and complicated processes to become elemental metal, while the clay dug from the creek bank on my property has had minimal processing, and is a ragged mix of multiple materials. Whether it is pure refined gold, the naturally growing cellulose structures of timber, the mix of heated minerals and aggregates we call concrete, or the man-made composites of carbon fibre embedded in resin, this is all matter for making. With each of these materials there is a deep relationship of use, often developed over hundreds of generations. These discs were worked by hand or simple machinery, in order to experience the way they feel under saw or hammer, the way they pour when molten, the way they mix and set, their smell, their texture, and how they change over time. Most of these materials I know and use, while some are from other makers. I worked them very tightly (I am

acrylic

acrylic, scavenged from engraving master guides, as used by my grandfather in his work as a 3-d pantograph engraver 10,000 volts AC at 2500Hz over Arista orthographic film. aluminium

aluminium, the only sample to deteriorate through imaging, the applied voltage depositing very thin patches of aluminium splatter over the emulsion, as can be seen.... this is low quality matter 30,000 volts DC over Arista orthographic film. bone (bovine)

cow bone, prepared from grisly butcher’s offcuts by a long-term vegetarian 15,000 volts AC at 400Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. brass

brass, cut from scrap bar in my workshop, used for making machine parts 25,000 volts DC negative over Arista orthographic film. brick

modern brick found on my property in South-West Tasmania, from a burnt-out building 15,000 volts AC at 80Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. brick (old, hand-made)

old hand-made brick found on the far coast of Southern Tasmania by Beatrice 15,000 volts AC at 250Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. bronze

phosphor bronze disc cast for these experiments 22,000 volts DC negative over Arista orthographic film. canvas (cotton)

medium weight cotton canvas as used in an artist’s painting frame 15,000 volts AC at 1200Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. carbon fibre composite

carbon fibre woven roving set in epoxy resin, for a drill press switch cover 12,000 volts AC at 40Hz over Arista orthographic film. cardboard

plain cardboard cut from packaging from The Book Depository, once containing a book by Michel Serres 15,000 volts AC at 150Hz over Avitone orthographic film. cast iron

cast iron, cut from a broken old wood stove that refused to keep me warm during winter 25,000 volts DC and 15,000 volts AC at 200Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. celerytop pine

celerytop pine from cladding used on my outhouse, supplied by Andrew at a local mill up the road 15,000 volts AC at 100Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. cement

cement render bought from Bunnings 15,000 volts AC at 300Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. charcoal

charcoal made from celerytop pine at 700 degrees reduction 15,000 volts AC at 1000Hz over Rollei Ortho 25 film clay (unfired)

clay dug and processed from the creek that runs through my property which is on Pottery road 10,000 volts AC at 300Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. concrete

concrete cut from footings of an old house in the neighbourhood 20,000 volts AC at 80Hz over Ilford Ortho film. copper

copper sliced from solid bar used for welding jigs, because of its high electrical and thermal conductivity 35,000 volts DC over Foma 100 panchromatic film. cork

compressed cork cut from an Ikea floor tile 12,000 volts AC at 300Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. corrugated cardboard

corrugated cardboard cut from packaging from Poland once containing obscure old electronics components 15,000 volts AC at 200Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. damascus steel

damascus steel layered from medium-carbon tool steel and low-carbon nickel steels, made cheaply in India, etched and hardened, but untempered 25,000 volts DC negative resonant pulse over Regent Royal orthographic film. dolerite

dolerite, a predominant stone in South-West Tasmania, found in eroded pieces on the highest hill of my property 15,000 volts AC at 500Hz over Ilford Ortho film. ebony

black african ebony from offcuts collected through friends, previously used in creating an articulated jewellery chain 10,000 volts AC at 400Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. fibreglass

fine woven fibreglass roving set in epoxy resin 10,000 volts AC at 800Hz over Arista orthographic film. firewood (eucalyptus globulus)

firewood out of my wood-pile, from one of several dead trees felled on my property, destined for a small wood stove 25,000 volts AC at 120Hz, over Aristatone orthographic film. fur (pademelon)

pademelon fur, processed by contemporary jeweller Nataša, from roadkill in Southern Tasmania 15,000 volts AC at 800Hz over Rollei Ortho 25 film. glass

glass from stained glass window maker Brigitte, my mother 5,000 volts AC at 20,000Hz over Arista orthographic film. gold

pure gold disc, cast for this study, and stunningly beautiful 22,000 volts DC over Foma 100 panchromatic film. graphite

graphite cut from a block used as a solid industrial lubricant 25,000 volts DC over Regent Royal orthographic film. hair (human)

hair massaged and felted, from a bad 70’s pornstar ponytail cut off the top of my head 18,000 volts AC at 600Hz over Rollei Ortho 25 film. horn (water buffalo)

water buffalo horn from an awful mantelpiece object bought at a Salvos store, and subsequently re-purposed for contemporary jewellery 15,000 volts AC at 400Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. huon pine

huon pine from fine woodworker Conrad, who scavenged all the tasty offcuts while working on a large boat in Hobart 15,000 volts AC at 140Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. jet

jet stone from wales, showing signs of its flammable nature with a feint mark from sparking evident in the sample 15,000 volts AC at 300Hz over Rollei Ortho 25 film. kelp

bull kelp as suggested by Joshua, harvested from South-West Tasmania, stretched and dried as sheet, and very tasty when used as a soup stock 12,000 volts AC at 240Hz over Avitone orthographic film. lead

lead, remelted from my late grandfather’s stock of roofing flashing 15,000 volts AC at 100Hz over Kodak Tri-X panchromatic film. leather (chrome-tanned)

beautifully orange chrome-tanned leather used in making several handmade shoes and books 10,000 volts AC at 400Hz over Rollei Ortho 25 film. leather (vegetable-tanned)

thick vegetable-tanned leather from leatherworker Keith, used in carved and dyed figurative work as well as belts and satchels 10,000 volts AC at 100Hz over Rollei Ortho 25 film. lime render

lime render with sand and straw, from building designer and worker Lukasz, as used for the internal and external rendering of his home 12,000 volts AC at 150Hz on Avitone orthographic film. linen

lightweight woven linen from Russia, used in the sewing of a summer shirt 10,000 volts AC at 800Hz over Avitone orthographic film. magnet (neodymium)

neodymium-iron-boron magnet with nickel plating, made in China, extracted from a pair of experimental planar-magnetic loudspeakers that sounded ok, but not great, and the magnets thus repurposed as super fridge magnets 30,000 volts DC negative over Arista orthographic film. marble

carrara marble, cut from Italian floor tiling 15,000 volts AC at 120Hz over Ilford Ortho film. mdf

medium density fibreboard bought from bunnings, used indiscriminately, and often disposed of similarly 10,000 volts AC at 400Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. mercury

mercury from my 3kg stash, obtained dodgily, previously used in a rippling shiny kinetic puddle artwork 25,000 volts DC over Arista orthographic film. meteroite ore (gibeon)

meteoric ore from Gibeon, Namibia, etched to show its structure, small pieces of which were once used for jewellery, but which I am now reluctant to cut due to its rare and irreplacable nature.... 30,000 volts DC and 10,000 volts AC at 600Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. neoprene rubber

neoprene rubber from my stock of sheet used for making various seals and gaskets 8,000 volts AC at 5000Hz over Arista orthographic film. oak

oak grown in Penrith, NSW, by retired engineer and all-round excellent nutter Ted 15,000 volts AC at 250Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. paper (canson ingres)

black canson ingres paper from artist and lecturer Ben, used for pen and laser machine drawings 15,000 volts AC at 150Hz over Avitone orthographic film. paper (cotton rag)

paper, hand laid with cotton fibres, for watercolour painting 10,000 volts AC at 80Hz over Avitone orthographic film. perspex

clear polymethyl methacrylate (perspex), salvaged from a broken picture frame found at the local garbage tip 12,000 volts AC at 1000Hz over Arista orthographic film. pigment (cobalt)

cobalt watercolour pigment from children’s book illustrator Owen, bound with gum arabic and assorted fillers 10,000 volts AC at 400Hz over Arista orthographic film. plaster

gypsum plaster cut from an old mould once used to create plastic jewellery parts 15,000 volts at 120Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. plastic (unknown kind)

unused plastic drink token from Berlin nightclub Postbahnhof, of unknown composition, found in my jacket pocket 2 years later, setting the basic size parameters for all other sample discs explored here 20,000 volts AC at 150Hz over Arista orthographic film. plywood

plywood from small boat builder Sam 15,000 volts AC at 800Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. polyethylene (high density)

high density polyethylene from contemporary jeweller Mark, formed by fusing used milk containers into sheet under heat and pressure in his kitchen oven (the use-by-date ink shows through in embedded layers), to be used for making contemporary jewellery artwork stuff 10,000 volts AC at 2000Hz over Arista orthographic film. polypropylene

polypropylene salvaged from the base of a broken electric kettle 10,000 volts AC at 2000Hz over Arista orthographic film. polystyrene (expanded)

expanded polystyrene foam cut from the thermal insulation in my bus, where it really doesnt work very well to protect from the cold Antarctic winds that blow over the frosty fields in front..... 15,000 volts AC at 1000Hz over Arista orthographic film. porcelain

porcelain from my favourite plate which broke under the weight of a dense gluten-free chocolate cake 5,000 volts AC at 5000Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. radiata pine

radiata pine from framing offcuts, the lengths of which were of course bought from Bunnings 15,000 volts AC at 250Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. reed grass (lomandra longifolia)

lomandra growing where I live, the leaves finely stripped, soaked, dried, and woven into a plain basket weave 12,000 volts AC at 100Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. reinforced concrete

reinforced concrete cut from the footings of a demolished building outside the Huonville coin-operated laundromat 25,000 volts AC at 60Hz over Ilford Ortho film. rock maple

rock maple, taken from a length of timber used to make a baroque recorder that I never learned to play and subsequently burnt in frustration, from a tree grown in Canada 15,000 volts AC at 250Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. sailcloth (cotton)

traditional woven cotton sailcloth, collected from tent-making offcuts 15,000 volts AC at 300Hz over Aristatone orthographic film. 5

sandstone

sandstone found along the lower ridges of my property, above where the alluvial earth has been laid down 15,000 volts AC at 2500Hz over Ilford Ortho film. shell (scallop)

scallop shell found on the coast near Hobart airport, which was later used to cut kelp leaves for another sample.... 15,000 volts AC at 300Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. silicon rubber

silicon rubber sheet bought from Tokyu Hands many years ago, used for cutting custom gaskets for old Italian stovetop coffeepots 10,000 volts AC at 5000Hz over Arista orthographic film. silk

orange silk from a secondhand kimono bought at the Hanazono shrine market in Tokyo, repurposed for jacket lining 10,000 volts AC at 600Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. silver

pure silver disc, cast for these experiments, here displaying the fact that it is the most conductive metal in existence 40,000 volts DC over Foma 100 panchromatic film. slate

dark grey slate, carved from a piece of floor tile that I hoped would be part of the house I one day build.... 15,000 volts AC at 1800Hz over Ilford Ortho film. stainless steel

316 grade austenitic stainless steel lathed from bar stock, sourced from Australian manufacture, and previously used for latheing complicated kinetic ball race jewellery 30,000 volts DC over Arista orthographic film. tantalum

tantalum, one of the most beautiful metals i have ever worked, cut from plate stock i once kept for making jewellery, sourced from a refinery in Jiujiang, China, that has a mine directly on site 20,000 volts DC negative polarity resonant pulse, over Ilford FP4 panchromatic film. terracotta

terracotta low-fired clay, from a broken planting pot originally made in Spain and shipped all the way to Australia 10,000 volts AC at 400Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. tin

tin sourced from a scientific element seller, melted in an empty baked bean tin and poured into a mould 20,000 volts AC at 20Hz over Kodak Tri-X panchromatic film. titanium

grade 5 titanium from my stock of metal round bar, bought through ebay and difficult to trace the origin of, used in the latheing and fabrication of intricate lightweight jewellery 20,000 volts DC negative polarity resonant pulse, over Ilford FP4 panchromatic film. tool steel

oil hardening medium-carbon tool steel used for making knives, hardened but untempered 30,000 volts DC and 5,000 volts AC at 120Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. urethane foam

polyurethane “spray” foam from a pressurised disposable cannister, used to insulate a shipping container door, is a truly awful material, the use of which should be avoided 15,000 volts AC at 150Hz over Arista orthographic film. urethane rubber

urethane rubber poured from 2-part liquid, used for mould-making 8,000 volts Ac at 1500Hz over Arista orthographic film. vellum

calf skin vellum purchased from St Petersburg, Russia, for the restoration of old books 12,000 volts AC at 250Hz over Rollei Ortho 25 film. wax (bees)

beeswax chewed out of tasty local honeycomb, for use in a simple wood polish 10,000 volts AC at 200Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. weathering steel

lyten weathering steel from sculptor Robin, used in large heavy decorated doors on his workshop 30,000 volts DC and 5,000 volts AC at 250Hz over Regent Royal orthographic film. wool felt

wool felt manufactured in Germany, previously used for restoring key padding in an old piano 10,000 volts AC at 120Hz over Avitone orthographic film. wool (woven fabric)

woven wool crepe fabric used for sewing a pair of wonderfully comfortable pants on my old singer treadle machine 15,000 volts AC at 250Hz on Avitone orthographic film. zinc

zinc sourced from a scientific element seller, melted and poured into a mould 20,000 volts AC at 20Hz over Kodak Tri-X panchromatic film. material notes

Acrylic is a modern plastic (polymethyl methacrylate) that is everywhere in our daily lives, first produced in the early 1930’s. This fluorescent acrylic was from my grandfather, who used the material to make stable and accurate master guides for 3-dimensional engraving of steel tools for die casting, on his German pantograph. The disc was cut from a larger piece - a 5:1 scale guide made for a 1970’s Westinghouse fridge badge, to be carefully engraved into a steel die, later used for pressing softer metals into badges. Acrylic is used for a variety of purposes, being easily manufactured and formed, into transparent windows and numerous small consumer parts, being especially useful where exposed to the elements, with its high environmental stability (relative for a plastic). Aluminium is a crap material, but has its uses. It is lightweight, stiff, and fairly soft. It is most often used alloyed with other metals, to increase its strength while still maintaining a low weight. It is often used in situations where light weight and high strength need to be balanced, such as in aeronautical applications, or in circumstances where it is cost effective, due to it being very inexpensive. It is the third most abundant element on our planet after oxygen and silicon, but is rarely found pure, due to is reactive nature, occurring rather as ores in various minerals such as bauxite (its primary commercial source). Its refinement from ores requires less heat and energy than many other metals, and this is reflected in its end cost. The metal was first separated in 1824, though its history is deeply bound with that of alum, a natural compound of aluminium, “These atoms are the alphabet of the universe used for textiles dyeing many century BC. Its name comes from the Latin alumen, meaning “bitter salt”, referring to the initial compound alum, and its taste. and their order determines the verses they make: the sky, the sea, Bone is the rigid organ forming animal skeletons, often collected from slaughtered livestock. This sample the rivers, the sun, the crops, the trees, and the living beasts. was prepared from the hind leg of a cow that was likely grown in the highly cramped conditions of modern They are not all the same, but they share in common many farming, and sold as a dog bone by a local butcher. Bone is composed mostly of a calcium salt bound with fundamentals, the differences being in how they combine. collagen (thus combining compressive and tensile strength), structured in a matrix that gives it light weight, My verses and the world’s are alike in this - the order, flexibility, and durability, with directional properties from its organic growth. I wear a mask while working it - the position, and disposition change, and the world is changed.” dust feels slightly greasy and gross, though it was boiled, bleached, and thoroughly dried. Maybe it is just me being a vegetarian and a little weird about it.... - Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1st Century BC. Its use as a material is prehistoric, such as with bone tools, which were widespread due to the ease of finding and working the material. It has also been used as decorative material in carving, as reliquaries and memento moris, boiled for glues, and burnt to make char for filtration and pigments. It has always had a strong connection with the afterlife, perhaps due to the internal hidden nature of bones, and their lasting permanence in decomposition when compared to the rest of the body. Bone is a potent symbol, aligning itself somewhere along the continuum between the positive proactive forces of life, and the ultimate power of death and time. It also holds connotations of ancestry, and of basic foundations. “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead....” -William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1793 Brass is a golden coloured alloy of copper and zinc (often with other minor metals alloyed in). It is easily worked cold, and casts well. Its history is tied up with that of zinc, and it seems that major production and use first occurred in India during 2nd millennium BC, where zinc was distilled in a similar way to mercury, to be used for the manufacture of brass. It is often used mechanically for low friction applications such as gears and valves. It has minor bactericidal properties, being used for food containers through history. It also has a long tradition of use in ceremonial ware, likely due to its ability to be easily formed and take on a lustrous golden shine that captivates the eye. “Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmiths.” - Queen Elizabeth I, 1581 Brick (modern) is mostly sand and clay, fired over 1000˚C in blocks to create a durable building material. “...well, the wolf huffed and puffed but he could not blow down that brick house....” - Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales, 1890. Brick (old, hand-made) contains a greater number of impurities and has a lower strength and durability due to its unevenly mixed composition. It is, however, beautiful, and there is the obvious touch of a hand upon it, in its composition and final form. Various local clays are mixed in this brick, each containing various iron oxides and other trace minerals that naturally colour the clays. This brick was collected in Southern Tasmania by Beatrice, where it was part of a demolished building on the coast. sand mixed in, and would be classified as a mortar rather than cement - cement being the pure binder, rarely Bronze is an alloy of copper, with 5-15% tin, creating a metal that is strong and durable, and hard enough used on its own. It is used to make concrete - one of the most common construction materials of our age - to use for cutting edges when worked cold. Its ability to be cast into intricate shapes lends its use to through the addition of aggregates such as sand and coarse gravel. Various types of cement have been in detailed decorative items as well. Its surface takes on a range of beautifully coloured patinas in reaction to use for centuries, such as volcanic ash and lime mixtures used by the Romans, as used in the magnificent the environment, most notably the typical green verdigris. Sources of tin were often located far from those Pantheon of Rome, the immense dome of which is made without any reinforcement. of copper, and thus the production of bronze necessitated trade across cultures. The Bronze age began Charcoal is the lightweight black material left after heating organic materials in the absence of oxygen. around 4th millennium BC, spreading across India, Europe and China, encouraging other important cultural, This sample was made from celery top pine sealed in a steel box in my ceramic kiln. It has been used for technological and intellectual exchanges alongside the trade required for its manufacture. It has been used industrial and domestic heating since ancient times, and also in the production of explosives, pigments, and for coins, weapons, musical instruments, in low-friction mechanics, and for sculpture. filters. Its use as a filter and purifier is made possible through its large internal surface area, which adsorbs Canvas is a heavy weight plain weave fabric made of cotton, also made historically of hemp and linen. It has certain contaminants, especially volatile organics. There is something beautiful and pure about charcoal, been used for sails, tents, upholstery, and stretched as an artist’s painting surface. especially high fired charcoal like this - it has a crystalline quality, and feels as if it has moved beyond death, of the organic matter which it once was, and has become something truly other - strange and peaceful. Carbon fibre composite is a material composed of two very different substances - strands of carbon filament twisted into thread and woven into fabric, and a matrix of epoxy resin (or one of many other clay (unfired) is mostly silicate minerals arranged in a microscopic sheet-like structure that lets the material different polymer matrices giving alternate qualities). The materials interact to create a stiff, durable and slip around at a molecular level, hence its squidgy plasticity. It also contains water at the molecular level exceedingly lightweight composite that has found favour in many high-end applications. It is also a good (even when “dry”, but not when fired at high heat), further accentuating its plastic nature. This clay was electrical conductor, as can be seen in the spark discharge imaging. While it is a very high strength material, dug from the sides of the creek that borders my property, which is on Pottery Road, so named for the it ultimately fails in a brittle manner, requiring a completely different design process to metals for instance pottery works that was its main building at one point. It was dug out, the stones and sticks removed, then - using algorithmically calculated impact attenuators in complex force simulations to control and direct thoroughly dried, crumbled to dust, removing any further stones or sticks in the process. The dry clay dust fractures in forms under load. The material has a high chemical resistance, and is used in many electronic was then slaked with water to soak it to a delicious slip, the rermaining sand removed through settling, and or motive applications, due to the heat conductive properties of carbon. It is used in aircraft, satellites, civil other organic impurities floating to the surface, or caught with fingers. This slip was laid out on canvas and engineering projects, automobiles and sporting goods. A sure sign of its techno-allure to the general masses dried to a consistency that was workable, and finally kneaded to make a uniform clay for use. is the proliferation of tacky fake carbon-fibre decals and decorative panels. “Clay is ubiquitous. If you gathered it all up and spread it evenly over the surface of the earth like peanut butter, you would create a mud layer a mile in thickness. Certainly, there are places in the world where Cardboard is a loosely defined paper product, most often made from wood pulp, and used mainly for there is no clay - deserts, some mountains ranges - but in most areas of the world, it is readily available, packaging. Its first commercial use was during the early 1800’s for various packaging tasks, while it was often plentiful.” popularised by cardboard cereal boxes made by the Kellogg company in the early 1900’s. While its main - Suzanne Staubach, Clay, 2005 application is in packaging, it is also used for such things as postcards, book covers, and picture frames. This sample was cut from packaging that arrived from overseas, containing a spellbinding book by French concrete is one of the most commonly used building materials in the developed world. It is made up of philosopher Michel Serres. coarse gravel or stone aggregates and sand, held together by a cement binder that sets hard and strong. It can be further strengthened by pre-formed reinforcement such as steel bar or basalt composite mesh, or, Cast iron is a high carbon iron alloy that is known widely for cookware. It is a somewhat brittle metal that by adding short fibres of polymer or steel into the mix. It is high in compressive strength, but relatively weak is however easy to machine, and has a mild resistance to corrosion. One of its greatest qualities is its low in tension, which is why it is most often reinforced in some way. In use it has often been referred to as “liquid melting point (due to relatively large amounts of carbon), which enables it to be easily cast. Cast iron is stone”, and one of its most characteristic features is its ability to take on almost any shape, provided that produced as a by-product during copper production, and many copper ores are bound with iron ores, and the formwork used to hold it while it sets can be made to support its heavy fluid weight as it hardens. Its this may have lead to its early discovery and use - via the widespread refining of copper. It use dates back strength is legendary, and “concrete” is often used in language as a metaphor for something that is solid and to China during the 5th century BC, where it has been found as farm equipment and weapons. It is a dirty unchangeable, or something fundamental - a basic framework or bedrock. material to work, somewhat soft when the outer carbon-rich skin is worked past, difficult to join in any way except cold connections, but excellent when conceived in full cast components. It is used for large pipes, copper is a pure metal that is pinky-orange in colour - copper-coloured, in fact. It is highly conductive of automotive parts, machine stands, and various other engineering applications. heat and electricity, and is relatively soft until worked cold, when it begins to harden and become brittle. It In the alchemical tradition, iron is ruled by Mars, and has strong connections to the element of earth. It brings was one of the first metals to be used in prehistory, due to it being one of the few elemental metals to occur connotations of blood, and of fire, passion, and war. Nowadays cast iron has closer connections with the commonly as native ore, ready for use without refining or processing. It is used as a constituent of many more peaceful flames of the home hearth, and of cooktops. alloys, such as bronze, brass, and monel, where it forms one of the main components. It is an indispensable part of our modern technological society, in the cabling of the electrical infrastructure through which most Celerytop pine (phyllocladus aspleniifolius) is a tree endemic to Tasmania, commonly found in wet forest electricity is delivered, as well as in supply transformer coils, and in electrical motors windings and the like. areas. There are many branch inclusions, and the timber is often highly featured. It is an excellent material, The coils of one of the step transformers used in these discharge images was hand-wound using copper well behaved, and able to hold fine sections under stress. It has a beautiful subtle floral / menthol fragrance. wire as thin as a hair, around a laminated steel core, all connected up through yet more copper wire. It is an It is quite durable and was often used for cladding of houses before it became more difficult to obtain. This integral part of the success of modern electrical power use, industrially and domestically. Average global use wood was milled by one of the local millers in my suburb, and used to clad my outhouse. of copper stands at around 11kg per capita per year, and it is a finite resource which is often extracted from Celerytop pine, and all other woods, are complex biological materials. In their growth, trees build their body environmentally devastating large open-cut mines. mass by aligning molecules into specific arrangements that are reactive to stress and gravity. “Over the entire 20th century about 170,000,000 tons of copper were produced and converted into “In the living tree, the structure allows for growth and repair. There are many things to be learned from manufactured goods in North America, of which about 60 percent remains in use, and 40 percent has biological materials, but the most universal is that biology builds its materials at many structural levels, been discarded, much into landfill. This discarded total is about 50 times the annual consumption of new and rarely makes a distinction between the material and the organism.” copper in North America.” - Christopher Hall, Materials, 2014. - Christopher Hall, Materials, 2014 Cement varies greatly in its quality, depending on its type, composition, its source, and processing. This is cork is the bark layer of the cork oak, the production of which is centred in Portugal. The main properties a common portland cement, made by the energy-intensive process of heating limestone and clay to over of cork are its elasticity and impermeability, which are the reason it is used to seal bottles and as a gasket 1400˚C to create solid “clinker”, which is ground with gypsum to create a final product. This sample has fine material. It is lighter than water, insulative with regards to heat and electricity, and is, surprisingly, fire retardant. has been used since prehistory for clothes and other purposes. Modern mass manufacture of clothing, It is used for many applications, notably for wine bottle corks, floats, gasket seals, and flooring tiles, and is exacerbated by luxury marketing of fur, has led to horrendous treatment of live animals used in its supply, often reconstituted into slabs from smaller offcut bits, for cheaper applications. which is now in decline from pressure by environmental and moral lobbying. This is another clear instance of corrugated cardboard is a fibre based (mainly wood pulp) material made of 3 or more layers of standard materials being supplied to the end user without any clear understanding, or responsibility, for the methods cardboard, the internal layer(s) rippled and laminated between flat outer sheets, to create structural strength of that material’s procurement and processing. This fur was obtained from roadkill in Southern Tasmania, of and cushioning. It was first produced in large quantities in New York in the 1870’s, and is used as a shipping the small marsupial pademelon, whose skittish behaviour on night-time roads leads to many of them dead material - a great many of our goods have been transported within it at some point. through car accident. It was prepared simply using alcohol and controlled drying, by local jeweller Nataša. damascus steel (as is commonly known and shown here) is formed by forging together layers of different glass is one of the most influential materials manufactured by humankind. From its modern use in optic fibres, steels, usually high carbon and low carbon, to make a material that is hard and takes a fine edge, but is light bulbs, glass insulation, microscopes and eye-glasses, car windows and sky-scraper facades, to its also resistant to fracture and shattering. The true nature of historic “damscus steel” in under contention and ancient use in small decorative elements, glass has been put to a broad range of uses. It is defined as being may refer to wootz steel, a specific alloy which has hard iron carbides in suspension, from its slow cooling somewhere between a liquid and a solid (because of its internal amorphous structure), but to our immediate at a high soaked heat. There is a lot of mythology around the name. It could be named after the capital of senses, glass is known for its brittle nature, and the dangerous sharp shards its fracture produces. It can be Syria where it was first sold, or after Damask pattern-woven fabrics made around that time. Its process is tempered and hardened through controlled cooling, and mineral additions can alter its qualities for specific labour-intensive and damascus steel was a very expensive material. Its creation involves laying up several purposes. It comes in sheet, rod, strand, fabric, and loose strand wool. It is typically made from heating sand alternating sheets of steel, and forging them under high heat to bond them, beating this out thin and refolding (silicon dioxide), lime, and soda, and then rapidly cooling, to stop it from crystallising, resulting in the clear, it over itself many times, to create thousands of complimentary layers of steel within one blank. The blank is brittle material without internal atomic order, that we know as glass. often coated in clay slip to prevent rapid oxidation and loss of carbon, with various materials added to the Gold (aurum) has been sought after throughout all history, and valued above all other materials. It is soft, slip, such as rice husks or straw, adding traces of silica and carbon in the process. its creation was a closely inert, easily worked, does not tarnish, and is one of the few metals that can be found naturally occurring. held secret in history, but is nowadays manufactured by hand and small industry as a luxury material, and However, it is largely “useless” for many purposes due to its softness, but rather, it is desirable - in jewellery, its typical use for weapons and blades has shifted to kitchen knives for fancy cooks like me. coins, wealth, and ornament. Clearly we are not driven simply by need and necessity, and gold embodies dolomite is a sedimentary rock found around the world that is composed mainly of a calcium-magnesium- these more abstract desires. It is essence, soul, and all we hope for. Or it can be simple greed. In many carbonate mineral of the same name. It is of medium hardness, has several cleavage planes, and a fine cultures gold has been used as an exuberant form of decoration and adornment. It seems that many of us crystalline structure that can be seen upon close inspection. Dolomite rock is often used for road base and now prefer to lock away such beauty in vaults, and count its financial value on computer screens in stock other aggregates due to its large deposits and easy sourcing. markets. What does this say about our world and where we are heading? In the alchemical world, gold is the ultimate metal, the final expression of spirit - purified and fully realised. It is ebony is a dense, dark, and waxy hardwood from various species of endangered trees mainly growing in represented by the sun in astrology, the giver of life and light and warmth. wet African lowlands . Many species are extremely slow growing (2cms per year) and have been harvested “Sol gold is, and to the point of near extinction. It is often illegally obtained from protected parks by poachers who are willing Luna silver we declare, to risk the work, as it is valued so highly, because we demand the wood for our clarinets and pianos. It is a Mars yron, beautiful material, hard, prone to splitting, but able to take a high finish, mostly used in musical instruments, Mercurie is quyksilver, and other decorative or fine woodworking. This ebony is from offcuts supplied to me after a call-out to all my Saturnus leed, maker friends, when I wanted to make a piece of ebony jewellery. I got more than I needed, as nobody was and Jupiter is tyn, willing to make anything out of it, because of its bad ecological and moral connotations. It is an exhausted And Venus coper, resource that is also a living organism part of a delicate biological community. by my fathers kyn.” fibreglass (or glass-reinforced plastic) is a composite material of glass and plastic resin. The making of - Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, 1476. glass fibres dates back to the late 1870’s, when it was woven into cloth, often with silk, into a durable and graphite (plumbago) is a crystalline form of carbon, naturally occurring, identical in composition to flame retardant industrial material. Glass-reinforced plastic developed after polyester resins were invented diamond, but different in atomic structure. Graphite has a structure of hexagon atoms arranged in sheets, in the 1930’s, using spun fibres of fine glass strands, mass produced, woven into a mesh, and laid up with giving it its soft and slippery nature. Diamond forms 3-dimensional frameworks, which in contrast make it liquid polyester resins, to set into strong, lightweight composite panels. The material is used in boats, planes, extremely hard. Graphite is very soft, and cleaves apart in layers easily, but is highly resistant to heat and watertanks, surfboards and many other applications. chemical attack. It also has interesting electrical properties, and is used as a resistive conductor in various Firewood (eucalyptus globulus), otherwise known as Southern Blue Gum, is a beautiful tree that just applications, such as electrical components and motor brushes. Synthetic graphite such as this sample, is happens to be in abundance on my property, also as dead, dry trees perfect for burning in a wood stove. It often used as a solid lubricant in industry due to its slippery nature, and also in high heat applications, such is one of the most widely cultivated of native Australian trees, and is the primary source of eucalyptus oil. Its as melting crucibles and furnace parts. pink to brown wood is dense, and sometimes used in coarse construction work. hair (human) forms out of follicles on our skin, and is composed primarily of keratin cells, alive at the root, “6th. I had not as yet been able to procure any of the flowers of a new species of the eucalyptus.... This but dead along the strand. This hair was taken from my own head, after cutting off a particularly bad pony, tree, which is one of the tallest in nature, as it grows sometimes to the height of 150 feet, blossoms only and needled and massaged and felted into shape. Hair is commonly used for making wigs, and sometimes near its summit.... We were obliged to cut down one of these trees in order to obtain its blossoms. Being for making dolls or keepsakes. It has slightly eerie connotations, being a part of the body that people identify already in a slanting position, it was easily felled. As the sun shone very bright the sap was mounting in closely with, until it is cut off. It is associated with individual strength and virility, and there are many tales and abundance, and as the tree was cut down it flowed very copiously from the lower part of the trunk. spells involving the use of hair for control or subjugation of another. This beautiful tree, which belongs to the tribe of the myrtles, has a very smooth bark....The seed “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and fasten it tight with the pin, then I shall capsules are open at the top, and are generally divided into four partitions.... It is shaped like a button; on become weak and be like any other man.” which account I have denominated this tree eucalyptus globulus.” - Samson, The Book of Judges, 6th Century BC. - Jacques Julien Houton de Labillardière, Voyage in Search of La Pérouse, 1798. horn (water buffalo) is a keratin based organic, that grows around the bony protrusions of animal skulls, fur is the hide of certain mammals, skinned and preserved with the hairs intact. The oily outer hairs and and is permanent, in contrast to antlers, which are shed. As a material it varies greatly, often being strong and thicker inner guard hairs create a warm insulative material held together by a layer of preserved skin, that durable, yet soft and pliable. It is not particularly stable near heat or water. Horn has been used throughout In the past, hair has been used to create a stronger structure and prevent cracking. It is used architecturally history for tools, musical instruments, handles, buttons, and diverse decorative purposes. to cover walls internally and externally, and “breathes”, allowing moisture to pass, while being resistant to the huon pine is wood from the conifer endemic to the Western rainforests of Tasmania. It is oldest living tree ingress of water by rain. It is fragile and friable at such small scales as this sample, but is durable and healthy in Australia (up to 3000 years) and grows very slowly (2mm per year in diameter). The wood is very finely as a building material, finding great favour as a healthy (although labour-intensive) building material. This piece grained, soft and buttery, with a sweet floral smell, and is exceedingly durable, even submerged, due to was supplied by local building designer Lukasz, who used it to seal the straw-bale walls on his home. the presence of methyl eugenol oil, which gives it its fragrance, and has preservative qualities. It has an linen is from the long fibres of the flax plant, spun and woven to form durable, lustrous cloth. It is an ancient extensive history as a timber in early Tasmania, when it was more plentiful than it is now. Most trees are now material, perhaps the oldest of fabrics, with records of established industry 4,000 years ago in Egypt. It has a in protected reserves. This piece is from local woodworker Conrad, who used it in ship building. It is expensive stiff feel that softens with use, breathes well, and is highly absorbent of water. It is slightly brittle and not very and highly prized, and its use now is mostly limited to boatbuilding and high end furniture. elastic, hence it creases easily, and eventually cracks with repeated folding. It is used for clothing, and the jet is a soft stone that is the product of wood, fossilised and compressed in water. It is mostly carbon, term “linen” is also synonymous with bedsheets, towels and napkins - which were tradtionally made of linen. with various impurities, and is defined as a form of lignite brown coal. Queen Victoria I popularised jet, in Magnet is a mysterious material that creates a strong magnetic field around it. This is a neodymium magnet, remembrance of Prince Albert, when it was the only gemstone allowed in court, and it is now synonymous and while all materials exhibit magnetic qualities, they are usually too weak to be noticed by the senses. with mourning jewellery. It is also used for small figurines. Working jet is a curious thing - it smells of the death Magnetism can occur from a material being worked in one direction, and through natural formation, but of the planet - shedding fine black petroleum-smelling powder, which ignites easily, as does solid jet. It is a this alloy of neodymium, iron and boron (plated with nickel) has been manufactured specifically to create a soft stone, without defined internal structure, and fractures easily, but takes a fine polish. It feels like a material strong magnetic field. The magnetism is created by soaking the alloy in a strong magnetic field at elevated that has gone through putrefaction and continued on to become something that is somehow a pure temperatures. This aligns the spin of the electron orbits (if you like the classic atomic model of reality), and absence of life. Quite mysterious. It has a long history in folklore and superstition. creates a material that is electromagnetically aligned one way, and thus, magnetic. “...experience shows that if water in which it [jet] has been washed is strained and given with some Naturally occurring magnetic stone has been recorded as being first “discovered” in the first century by a scrapings of the stone to a virgin, after drinking it she retains it and does not urinate; but if she is not a shepherd in Greece (sometimes cited as being India, which does seem quite a different place). virgin, she urinates at once. And this is the way virginity should be tested.” “The magnetic stone received its name “magnes” from the person who was the first to discover it, upon - Albertus Magnus, The Book of Minerals, 13th Century. Ida. Magnes, it is said, made this discovery, when, upon taking his herds to pasture, he found that the nails of his shoes and the iron ferrel of his staff adhered to the ground.” kelp is a large aquatic algal seaweed growing in shallow waters near the coast. Many species are fast- - Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, 79AD growing and plentiful, and have been a food resource in many cultures. It is also processed for use as a Magnets are used for all manner of purposes in modern life, from electronic and electromechanical thickening agent, and its ash has been used in soap and glass manufacture due to its high alkali content. It components, industrial holding devices, and for fridge magnets. The thing that really annoys me is when is used in Tasmania for traditional basketry, after being stripped and prepared, and was suggested by local friends come around and can’t resist playing with my super-magnets that I make stuff with - they pinch their indigenous artist Joshua. It is also being used extensively for making plant fertilizer. fingers, break the magnets, and seem to disappear off into a world entirely of their own. At least all the broken Lead (plumbum) is a deep grey beauty of a metal, which is heavy, soft, and with a very low melting point. pieces stick together. Magnetism is compelling and mysterious, and brings wonder to the senses.... Over half the modern demand is for batteries. Traditionally it was used for many things, due to its ease of marble is a metamorphic rock formed by heat and pressure to limestone. Its slight sparkle is due to the working - food ware and vases, roofing details, and famously, water plumbing pipe. This is of course worrying, calcite crystals that form from this metamorphism. It is easily procured, and there are large deposits around as it can be stored in the body over long periods of exposure and creates adverse effects, notably on brain the world, and a long history of mining and use. It is often used crushed, as aggregate, but also in slabs and function. It is however easily worked, and procured, and has a long history of use. chunks for flooring, sculpture, benchtops, and building facades. The colours vary greatly, and this sample is “Lead was being extracted from its ores during the sixth and even seventh Millenia BC. The smelting of a white carrara marble, mined in Italy. Marble is a relatively soft stone, and ca be worked with chisels, as the lead thus probably predated the smelting of any other metal, copper included” stereotypical sculptor may be imagined, or wet with diamond blades and fine paper, as was done here. - Jack Ogden, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technologies, 2000. Lead has strong ties with death - with its use as bullets, and in tomb stone decoration, not to mention its mdf (medium density fibreboard) is a cheap and nasty material situated somewhere between wood and poisonous effect in the body. It is the heaviest “stable” element, having a very long half-life, being used for cardboard. It is made by bonding pulp wood fibres into sheets under heat and pressure with chemical long-term scientific dating (in conjunction with isotopes of uranium of which many forms of lead are the final binders, notably urea formaldehyde, hence its bad health reputation. It is used for a great variety of crappy decay products). Lead is considered by alchemy to be the oldest, basest and most impure of metals, and is building and furniture applications. To be avoided, if possible. represented by the planet Saturn. Lead forms a conceptual limit or boundary as a material, and can refer to Mercury (hydragyrum) is a silvery metal that is liquid at temperatures above -38.9˚C. It was first observed long ages of time, especially of the distant past. solid on the intensely cold Christmas day of 1759 in St Petersburg by Mikhail Vasil’evich Lomonosov, and was leather (chrome tanned) is the skin of various animals (most commonly bovine), that is removed from previously not considered a metal. Mercury has an undeniable fascination to the senses, with its heavy, the carcass, degreased, its hair removed, and chemically tanned to prevent hardening and decomposition. reflective, liquid nature. It is used in many electrical applications, including vapour lighting and switches, as Chrome tanning began in the mid 1800’s and uses chrome salts to replace the water molecules in the well as thermometers and other scientific equipment. It is the only metal to retain its ancient alchemical name. collagen fibres that make up leather, thus preserving the skin and turning it into leather. Chrome tanned “Under his Roman name of Mercury, Hermes is the prime god of the alchemists who hoped to leather is soft, water resistant, and comes in fabulous colours like this orange. It is used in clothing, bags, transform base matter into refined, spiritual gold. Mercury is “quick silver”, the spirit that existed in matter.” books, furniture coverings, and various other applications. - Gisela Labouvie-Vief, Psyche and Eros, 1994 leather (vegetable tanned) is an older chemical form of preserved animal skin, and differs from chrome Meteorite ore varies in its nature depending on the individual meteorite fall. This Meteorite is from Gibeon, tanned leather in being more effected by its environment and use, due to the natural tannins used in its Africa, which fell in prehistoric times and was estimated to be 26 tons. It is mostly iron and nickel, with traces processing, The tannin molecules come from various vegetable sources (tree barks mainly), creating a of other elements, and has a distinctive octahedrite structure. This structure only forms through extraordinary leather that responds in colour and handle to its use, absorbing water if untreated, although being potentially slow cooling - this piece of meteorite solidified very slowly a phenomenal 4,000,000,000 years ago, while the very durable, given appropriate care. It is used for saddlery, belts, shoe soles, luggage and as pulley belts or Earth itself is aged at only 4,500,000,000 years old. This makes these crystalline lattices by far the oldest seals in machinery. existing structures any of us will ever directly encounter in our lives. Crazy amounts of time.... Meteorite was sometimes crafted into daggers and ornaments in the ancient world, such as King lime render is a mix of lime and sand, sometimes with straw to increase structure and bulk out the material. Tutankhamun’s iron dagger. Before the smelting of iron was developed, meteoric ore was the only naturally occurring form of iron (besides extremely rare telluric iron in Greenland), and it was significantly harder than plastic (unknown kind) is a modern material that surrounds us at all times. This unknown kind of thermoset any other metal known to early cultures. It would have been very precious and mysterious. plastic is an unused drink token from a Berlin night club Postbahnhof, that I found years later in my jacket “When the stars threw down their spears pocket. I like this unused pink drink token so much, because its a great pink, and the feel of plastic in your And water’d heaven with their tears: hand is kind of like being sober in a Berlin nightclub - its weird. The shape of this token became the template Did he smile his work to see? for all the other material samples collected here, and they were all formed to match. Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” plywood is a manufactured wood product of layers of wooden veneers or “plies” that are stacked and - William Blake, The Tyger, 1794 bonded together at alternating grain directions, forming a stable flat sheet resistant to warping, shrinkage, and Meteoric ore is an exceptional material that I was always eager to work with. The first time I did so, in a splitting, and with greater stiffness than the natural timber used in its manufacture. Its history dates back to dark studio one evening, I watched the sawdust fall from my saw, twinkling in the light, and realised, quite the 1860’s in France. Various grades of veneers and glues alter the qualities, maximising compressive and tragically, that I was making stardust. It is a gorgeous material, incredibly potent, insanely old, though it often tensive stresses, having greater environmental durability, or showing decorative outer face surfaces. The has many flaws and cracks, making it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to work properly. I now feel quite sample here is from local small boat builder Sam, who used it in a small skiff. reluctant to use it, as it is a very finite resource, and after buying a small whole meteorite fragment that cost me a fortune, I have decided to keep it intact, and simply bask in its presence. polyethylene (high density) is an easily recycled plastic composed mainly of ethylene molecules. It is strong and lightweight, naturally opaque, resistant to many chemicals, and able to withstand autoclave neoprene rubber is a general purpose synthetic rubber that is a polymer of chloroprene. It is flexible over sterilising. It is one of the most commonly used plastics that is extruded, moulded, and blown into an a wide temperature range and resistant to chemical attack. It was first produced in 1930, and has largely enormous variety of products, including conduit and pipes, food containers, chairs, bags, geomembranes, replaced natural rubber, produced from the sap of the rubber tree. It is used for seals, hoses, electrical and storage boxes. This sample is from contemporary jeweller Mark, who once fused milk containers insulation, vibration dampers, pulley belts and a vast range of other purposes. together to create chunks of plastic to create jewellery out of, before he retired very early. oak is a dense hard timber from several tree species of the same name, native across the northern polypropylene is a rigid thermoplastic with a relatively high melting point, also known for its high fatigue hemisphere. It is a very durable wood due to its high tannin content, and has a long history of use for building resistance. Discovered in the 1950’s, it is now the second-most widely used plastic (after polyethylene), work, tool handles, furniture, boat-making, and wine barrels, among other applications. This timber was from a coming into everyday use for products such as automotive bumpers and batteries, kitchen cutting boards, tree felled and milled in the backyard of retired engineer and wood-dabbler Ted. hinge parts, packaging, medical tools, textiles, rugs, and food containers. This sample was cut from the base paper (canson ingres) is a modern acid-free paper, manufactured of wood pulp and cotton, and sized of a broken electric kettle. with gelatin. This particular paper is used by artists for drawing. The history of paper in general is a vast polystyrene is a cheap recyclable polymer of the styrene molecule, that is naturally transparent, hard and and convoluted topic, which many sources date to 1st Century BC China. With the invention of woodblock stiff. It is often formed as an expanded closed-cell foam (EPS), as here, created through blowing carbon printing 600 years later, the basic notion of the printed newspaper was set. The effect of printed paper dioxide gas, creating a material that is lightweight and thermally insulative, but with low melting point and books and manuscripts on the dissemination of learning and thought is hard to fully appreciate, as it is such solvent resistance. As an expanded foam it is commonly used for food containers, building insulation, and an integral part of our knowledge culture. Paper is a very important material that has had a tremendous cushioning for packaging. It is easily recycled, but not undertaken in some areas, such as the small remote impact. Of course paper has many other uses, from wrapping goods and foodstuffs, banknotes, southern island of Australia, Tasmania. photographs, legal documents and love letters to name a few. This piece was supplied by artist and drawing lecturer Ben, who uses it in machine-mediated drawing expoeriments. porcelain is a high fired ceramic of fine composition, made from various clay minerals including kaolin. It is vitreous and glass-like when fired around 1300˚C, tough, translucent, electrically insulative, and very white in paper (cotton rag) is a handmade paper entirely made from cotton fibres. It is less directional than the comparison to other ceramics. Its use dates back at least 2000 years to China. It is commonly used for food canson paper, due to it being made by hand in a mould and deckle, rather than machine produced en plates and cups, laboratory equipment, toilet bowls, and electrical insulators. masse. This paper is extremely absorbent, and intended primarily for use with watercolour pigments. Radiata Pine is a cheap soft wood that is one of the most widely grown timber species in the world, Perspex, a brandname for polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), is a strong, tough, and lightweight plastic most with global plantations of 3.7 million hectares. Despite this, it is a threatened species in its natural habitat of notably used as glass replacement (along with polycarbonate) in certain circumstances. California. It is used for wood pulp, building construction, furniture, laminated wood, and crates. The bark is “....the largest single window in the world, an observation window at California’s Monterrey Bay Aquarium, often used as garden mulch. It is the most commonly used timber in Australia. is made of one big piece of PMMA which is 16.6 m long, 5.5 m high, and 33 cm thick.” “Porta general purpose Dressed All Round (DAR) is made from standard and better radiata pine that may - Polymer Science Learning Centre Information Booklet, 2008. include imperfections such as knots and resin pockets. Suitable for indoor use, it is easy to work with Perspex transmits up to 92% of visible light (3 mm thickness), and gives a reflection of about 4% from each and has excellent staining properties. of its surfaces. It displays the unusual property of keeping a beam of light reflected within its surfaces, and Softwood; Easy to work with; Stain or paint; Indoor use; Suitable in wet areas” is frequently made into optical fibres. It was discovered in early 1930’s in England. To produce 1 kg of perspex, - Bunnings website, 2019 about 2 kg of petroleum is needed, and it is not easily recycled. It is considered a group 7 plastic among reed grass (lomandra), or sagg as it is commonly known, is a prolific plant on the property where I live in recycled plastics and is not collected for recycling in most places. Tasmania, and all across Australia. This sample was very simply stripped, dried, and soaked, then woven by pigment has been used throughout the ages to colour our world, from ground earthen ochres on cave hand. Such processes, carried out with much greater refinement, were common practices for indigenous walls, plant roots used to dye fabrics, crushed insect bodies to colour our food, to synthetic mineral basketry work in Tasmania. The lower stem was also used as a food source, the seeds ground for flour, and colourants in modern plastics. A pigment could loosely be defined as an intensely coloured substance used the root crushed as medicine for treating insect stings. to change the colour of other materials. This pigment is a cobalt blue, synthetically created, very stable, and reinforced concrete consists of cement and aggregate, with reinforcing rod, fibre or mesh. The reinforcing bound in a gum arabic medium intended for watercolour painting. This colour is the favourite sky base of adds tensile strength to the concrete, which is weak in this respect, but very strong compressively children’s book illustrator Owen. - effectively creating a composite material optimised for various methods of loading. Commonly the plaster is nowadays commonly made of gypsum heated to remove its molecular water, and then powdered, reinforcement is steel bar, as here, which is mostly protected from rust through being encapsulated in the ready for mixing with water to set solid into whatever form is desired. The resulting dry plaster is clear white concrete. It eventually often fails through corrosion of the steel however, swelling and busting open the in colour, solid and stable, but soft and fairly brittle, allowing for final forming and finishing work. It is used for concrete around it. It is one of the most common architectural materials, used for footings and foundations, walls (often sandwiched between paper layers as in preformed Gyprock sheeting), decorative architraving, entire units and skyscrapers, bridges and large watertanks.. Recent alternative reinforcing materials are sculpture, mould-making, and medical bone casts. becoming more common, such as plastic fibres spread through the mix, or basalt composite bar and mesh, magnetic (though if cold-worked this can change, and the 400 series alloys are magnetic), and is generally which do no corrode, are non-magnetic, and provide a longer-lasting structural material. very well behaved, except when it comes to heat, where its behaviour can be problematic due to its rock maple is timber from the sugar maple tree, native to North America and Canada. It is a hard and dense low thermal conductivity. It is difficult to form, though somehow quite obedient and predictable. It is very wood that is well behaved, if harsh on tools. It is very hard-wearing and ideal for flooring, as well as being demanding on hands and tools, but rewards hard work with a strong finished product that can be long- used for furniture, musical instruments, and interior joinery. It is the only timber besides Celerytop pine that I lasting and shiny. Modern forms of stainless steel are historically recognised as being invented in 1913, though have found stable enough for making fine wooden kinetic jewellery work. corrosion resistant high chromium steels were patented as early as 1872. Stainless steel is used for food utensils, sinks, surgical implements and implants, in the chemical industry, as sailcloth is made from a variety of natural and synthetic fibres, from cotton and linen, to nylons, polyesters a construction material, for water tanks and in a broad range of other applications. This disc of 316 alloy was and high performance textiles like kevlar. Cotton, such as this sample, was used mainly from the 19th century lathed from a bar used for making jewellery, and slowly sanded by hand. It is one of the most suitable metals until the late 20th, replaced by synthetic fibres due to cotton’s poor resistance to rot, and its high water for making kinetic ball race rings, and other fine turned, welded and fabricated work. absorption rate. It is now more often used for upholstery and heavy luggage. Tantalum is a beautifully heavy metal, coloured the deep grey of thunderclouds, hard but malleable, rare and shell (scallop) is the naturally occurring outer case of a sea mollusc, found in plentiful numbers across the expensive, with a very high melting point and low reactivity. It is my favourite metal, alongside pure gold, due globe. The shell is primarily calcium carbonate, and has been used as an ingredient for plastering and paving, to its density, its stubborn difficulty of working, and its darkness, which lends it a lush brooding character. It and is now being used for a range of exotic purposes, such as heated and powdered as an anti-microbial is used in electronic components, surgical implants, my handmade jewellery, and in exotic alloys for reactors, agent, or for the extraction of strontium in contaminated water. I used this scallop shell to cut ribbons of turbine blades and rocket nozzles. Discovered in 1802 (though not separated purely until 1903), it was named kelp while on the South-west coast of Tasmania, and it is likely it has been used similarly in such a simple after Tantalus, son of Zeus, whose torment may have been seen to have parallels with the metals highly way, many times before. The scallop shell also has rich symbolic meaning - it is the traditional emblem unreactive nature, and possibly to the plight of fabricators trying to make anything out of it.... of St James the Great, and has been linked to Celtic rituals of the setting sun, while shells in general are “Aye, and I saw Tantalus in violent torment, standing in a pool, and the water came nigh unto his chin. connected to the feminine principle, nurturing, and containment. He seemed as one athirst, but could not take and drink; for as often as that old man stooped down, silicon rubber is a flexible elastomer that is chemically resistant and holds its properties in a wide range of eager to drink, so often would the water be swallowed up and vanish away, and at his feet the black temperatures. It is a good electrical insulator. It is easy to manufacture to shape and comes in many forms earth would appear, for some god made all dry. And trees, high and leafy, let stream their fruits above - sheet, block, 2-part liquid, or as a peroxide-cured adhesive tube from Bunnings. It is found in a wide range his head, pears, and pomegranates, and apple trees with their bright fruit, and sweet figs, and luxuriant of applications, from seals in industrial machinery, electrical and vibrational insulators, as a mould-making olives. But as often as that old man would reach out toward these, to clutch them with his hands, the material, for food cooking implements, sportwear, and orthodontics. This silicon was sourced as sheet from wind would toss them to the shadowy clouds.” the wonder store Tokyu Hands, in Japan. - Homer, The Odyssey, 8th century BC. silk is a continuous fiber extracted from the cocoons of certain moth larvae, and has been in use since terracotta is a type of fired clay, meaning “baked earth” in Italian, and first referring to a porous reddish ancient times, sometime over 8,500 years ago. It is collected mainly through killing the larvae of silkworms ceramic from one local area. It now means any ceramic that is reddish (due mainly to iron content), porous, fed on mulberry leaves, and spooling the thread from the unbroken cocoon, to be spun into thread and often heavily grogged, and low fired. Terracotta is commonly left unglazed. It is a brittle material, and all forming woven into textiles. A traditional Japanese kimono will use the silk of 5000 silk worms. Silk is a strong material, is done before firing, except perhaps for ocassional cutting with a diamond blade. It is used for roofing tiles, composed of protein, with a natural sheen due to its triangular cross-section. It is a poor conductor of plant pots, water pipes, sculpture, and simple cookware. electricity. Silk is used in clothing, parachutes, in surgical sutures, and a host of other applications. tin (stannum) is a a soft shiny crystalline metal that melts at low temperatures. It was first used with copper, “The most widely raised type of silkworm, the larva of Bombyx mori, no longer exists anywhere in a in the historically important alloy bronze, and was traded across cultures extensively. It is produced mainly natural state. The legs of the larvae have degenerated, and the adults do not fly.” from the ore cassiterite and refined by reduction under heat. Its original name stannum refers to the early - John Kershaw, The Story of Silk, 2017. misconception (pre 4th Century AD Europe), that it was an alloy of silver and lead. It is a soft metal, easy silver (argentum) is the most reflective and electrically conductive material known. It has a long history of to cast, and when bent creates an intriguing crackling cry, as its microstructure is stretched and broken. It use, due to its easy working, its shininess when polished, and perhaps also its relative scarcity. Silver is a big is used as a protective layer over steel, notably in “tins” of baked beans, in alloys with other metals such industry in Australia and much of it comes from galena ore mined beneath the ground, later separated from as bronze or pewter, in the electronics and glass-making industry, and in soft solders, of which around half the predominant lead in the refining process (shipped across the globe to do so). It is also sometimes found of the worlds supply is used for. As one of the ancient world’s 7 known metals, it has important alchemical natively, alloyed with gold, with which it has many similar material qualities, as well as mythical associations. associations, and is allied with the planet Jupiter. It is used in coinage, jewellery and tableware, as well as in photography, electronics, high-end mirrors, as an titanium is a strong, lightweight, chemically inert, and high-temperature metal that has technological anti-microbioal, and in various chemical processes. connotations of jet fighters and rockets. It is relatively modern, being isolated as an element in 1910, and In alchemical knowledge, silver is associated with the moon, and its self-reflective and intuitive natures. It is a only coming into any real use in the 1950’s. As a metal it is most often alloyed with small amounts of other particularly responsive metal, and ideal for research into the esoteric aspects of matter. One early pioneer of elements, this sample being alloyed with aluminium and vanadium (grade 5) to improve its strength and this kind of work, Elizabeth Kolisko, researched the reaction of silver nitrate to the phases of the moon, over workability. As such an alloy it machines smoothly, and can be worked well in general, albeit with difficulty, many years, through developed paper, published in the book Das Silber und der Mond, in 1929. and special tooling such as carbide bits. It is not a very good conductor of electricity, or of heat, which “The moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven....” often causes overheating of tools while working, in a similar fashion to stainless steels, but worse. Welding is - William Shakespeare, Midsummer Nights Dream, 1595. difficult, as it reacts strongly with oxygen and nitrogen, requiring fiddly gas shielding. Slate is a fine low-grade soft-ish metamorphic rock that comes in many different colours and grades. It is a very common material in its ore form, such as rutile or titanite, but requires considerable energy to It is used for roofing and flooring, due to the way it cleaves easily into thin planar sheets. Slate is stable refine, due to its high melting point and sensitivity to atmospheric gases when molten. The metal is used mechanically, as well as thermally and chemically, being used in the past for laboratory tables, and more in the aerospace industry, high end engineering, luxury sporting goods, medical tools and implants, the chemical industry, for making super-lightweight kinetic ball jewellery, and a host of other applications. Most recently for billiard tables. The common term “a blank slate” refers to its ancient use for writing tablets, of the titanium produced is not metallic, but in the form of titanium dioxide - a whitening agent and pigment with chalk pencils. It is a good electrical insulator, as evidenced by its shallow spark discharge image. used in paint, food, and cosmetics. It is also common as titanium nitride for tool coatings. Stainless steel refers to a range of alloys of iron, usually with chrome and nickel, that resist rusting tool steel is a generic name for a variety of steels that are composed of iron, with 0.5-1.5% carbon, making due to the quick formation of a benign oxide layer. Stainless steel is hard, tough, corrosion-resistant, non- them incredibly hard when properly treated. Other alloys are often added to increase hardness, wearability, workability, and corrosion resistance. This sample is an O1 oil-hardening tool steel, that can be hardened worked to the desired density. It can be re-formed through the application of heat and moisture. Felt is and tempered to make a sharp and durable blade. It is a somewhat difficult material to work, but can be used for many applications, such as industrial seals, packing cushioning, acoustic insulation, hats, polishing sufficiently formed to meet most applications. It is hard, often gummy to work cold, though easily forged, but abrasive wheels, or pad stops under piano keys. difficult to join. Through the process of “hardening” - heating at high temperatures and rapidly cooling - wool (woven) is the fibre of sheep spun into fine yarn, and woven into fabric. Wool can also refer to other it becomes very hard, due to iron carbides being trapped in its structure. Subsequent “tempering” - a more animal fibres, such as alpaca fleece, goat cashmere or rabbit angora. As an animal protein fibre it behaves gentle heating to relieve intermolecular stresses - turns this very hard but brittle steel, into something tougher very differently to the cellulose based plant fibres of cotton and linen. Wool is crimped along its length, and and more durable. slightly elastic, which makes the woven fabric very insulative, and as wool can absorb one third of its weight The initial industrial manufacture and subsequent scientific understanding of making carbon steel, gave rise in moisture, it is an ideal regulator of heat and moisture. Woven wool is used for clothing, blankets, upholstery, to the main thrust of material science. This approach redefined chemistry during the 17th Century, altering and soft home furnishings. the general landscape of scientific understanding. No other metal alloy has received as much intense The process of manufacture for woven wool is a long one, from the shearing and cleaning of the fleece, investigation as that of iron and carbon, and created a meeting of the crafts, manufacturing, and scientific carding and spinning of the fibre through worsted or woollen processes, dyeing to colour, and weaving of understanding. Now, steel is still one of the most important materials of our modern world, being in use in yarns on a loom. Weaving of wool was popular in Egypt around 2000 BC, simple looms being developed virtually every aspect of manufacturing. It is globally mined, refined and distributed. much earlier, mainly for flax, around 5000 BC. The technological developments of the loom, particularly “For iron and steel, the global in-use stock is about 2.2 tons per capita... at least 10 tons in the USA but around the late 1780’s with the power loom, created one of the largest shifts in labour practice at the time. only 1.5 tons in China.” A factory of skilled weavers were replaced with faster and cheaper machinery that could be run by one - Christopher Hall, Materials, 2014. or two poorly paid children. In many places such as Scotland, violent riots were known to end with dead Steel is ruled by Mars in the alchemical tradition, with its connotations of fire, the smithy god Vulcan, and of workers, as they rebelled against their livelihood slipping away through early industrial mechanisation. passion and strength. It is associated with earthly endeavours, and proactive, masculine undertakings. Materials and manufacturing have always been closely linked with the livelihood, and with a sense of meaning, for individual workers. urethane foam is part of a large group of urethane polymers, with a specific aerating liquid that creates an expanding closed cell foam when exposed to the atmosphere. It is lightweight, waterproof and highly zinc is a soft shiny metal with a low melting point and a high resistance to corrosion. It is brittle at normal insulative, used for gap filling, insulation, condensation control, and form-fit packaging. It is a particularly nasty temperatures, and is not easily worked. It is most often used as a protective layer over steel, or in alloys with substance while it forms, and one I hope never to use again.. other metals such as brass, but rarely in its pure form. It is well known for die-cast toys, where it is alloyed with a small amount of aluminium to form a cheap metal that is easily formed into cars, planes and fancy urethane rubber is a modern elastomer developed in the late 1930’s. Urethane rubbers can be formulated to cover a wide range of properties from extreme flexibility, to harder solids that can survive extreme pressures. little space rockets. Zinc is mined from ore that is often blasted and collected underground, crushed and This rubber sample was formed from a 2-part liquid, is quite flexible, and intended specifically for casting separated by a chemically assisted flotation of the sulphide, which is refined through various applications concrete parts, which is how the cement sample was formed. Urethane rubbers are used for many soft and of heat, acid baths, and electrolysis. It has been important throughout history as an alloying element, and hard applications, including industrial belts, concrete moulds, suspension, condoms and skateboard wheels. much like tin, was not known to be a separate metal, until much later after being in use with brass. It was the alchemists of the East intent on discovering the esoteric mysteries of the universe, rather than commercial vellum is calf skin (sheep skin is technically parchment) in thin sheet form prepared for writing or printing. It is manufacturing interests, that first separated zinc as a metal in its own right. seldom used today, and mostly for restoration work. It is prepared by cleaning flesh and hair away from calf “The production of zinc probably began on a laboratory scale by the iatro-chemists in India in the latter skin, which is stretched on a frame to be scraped with a curved blade, in between being dried and wetted part of the first millennium BCE and beginning of the first millennium CE... In both India and in China a several times, so that tension is introduced into the skin and it is thinned. Pumice is used for final smoothing, striking feature of the production of zinc was the rise of a real chemical industry based on scientific and the surface chalked to better accept ink. It was used for books and manuscripts of all kinds in history, laboratory practice, long before such developments began in Europe.” but is now limited to important religious texts, or high-end legal documents such as the US Constitution, as it - Paul T Craddock, Brass, Zinc and the Beginnings of Chemical Industry, 2018. is considered more durable and stable than paper. Zinc extends the early interests of the alchemists and their seven planets and metals, through contemporary Wax from bees has been in use for a long time. The earliest evidence of beekeeping is from pictographic alchemical associations of zinc with Uranus - a modern planet for a modern metal (in the Western world, at wall panels within the Sun temple of Niuserra, Egypt, in the fifth Dynasty (25-24th Century BC). Being readily least). There are associations of renewal and progressivity, as well as the general traits of Uranus’ ruling sign, available and easily formed, it has been used as a setting agent, binder, and sealant. Aquarius. “Beeswax is produced by the female worker honeybee. The liquid wax is secreted from glands under the abdomen and hardens into plates. These in turn are removed by the hind legs of the bee, transferred to the fore legs and then placed in the mouth, chewed, and finally applied to the combs.” - Eva Crane, A Book of Honey, 1980. weathering steel is a low carbon high strength alloy that contains small amounts of other elements, mostly copper and nickel, to form a dense, stable, non-porous oxide layer that protects from further oxidation. It has a very characteristic rusty look, orange when dry, deep red brown when wet, and has found favour with modern architecture, for its gutsy, natural aesthetic. Its main appeal is its low maintenance - the oxide layer means it does not need to be painted or maintained. It was developed in the late 1920’s but was initially only used for earth-moving equipment and othe rindustrial applications. In manufacture it works similarly to other alloys, and can be welded and joined similarly to other steels. It is used in architectural facades, bridges, shipping container construction, and large sculptural works exposed to the elements. wool felt is produced by matting and condensing the fibres of sheep wool. It is considered to be the oldest known textile, as it is a very basic technique, with surviving samples dating back to 6,500 BC in Turkey. It can be made by hand, assisted with needle, ran through simple rollers or sheets, stamped by foot, or produced at industrial scale with large machinery. The process relies upon the minute barbs of the softened fibres to interlock and hold against each other, matting together to form a solid mass, which is compressed and and experimenting with bulky foil and glass plate setups similar to early tesla coils. process notes The AC circuit is a very different beast which has a very different effect. It is mains powered, consisting of a solid state tesla coil oscillator circuit from RM Cybernetics in the UK, set by a timed switch (simple These images are created on various large format photographic film emulsions. High voltage electricity is breadboarded 555 timer circuit running in steps from 5ms to 5 seconds), and a parallel pair of step-up coils. made to move through a material sample, and exits the sample, discharging a unique spark signature as it The output of this setup reaches nowhere near the sheer grunt of the DC setup, which has 60,000 volts does so. These discharges expose the film, through photons that are thrown off the ionising air just above with 50uF of fast capacitors and a large hand-wound step-up coil, but the ability to tune the AC to resonate the paper. This is a camera-less procedure. within the materials allows for a far greater level of subtlety, especially whenever materials are not very The electricity is created through several generators that have been made specifically for the purpose. conductive, such as dry woods and plastics. The simplest is a DC pulse unit which consists of a bank of batteries at 500 volts, a tuning capacitor of between 1 and 30uF, and a step-up coil (autotransformer) similar to that used for spark ignition in an engine. A word of extreme caution also - whenever doing this work, I always have one hand placed behind my This creates a damped resonant pulse, closer to a quickly decaying AC signal than pure DC pulse, of up back, as the kick from the large capacitors stepped up in voltage across my chest and heart would be fatal. to 60,000 volts. One of the more complex generators consists of a modified solid-state tesla coil oscillator One hand behind my back! controlled by a simple 555 timer switch in the range of milliseconds, connected to a parallel set of larger step-up coils. This allows for adjustment of duration, power, and oscillation frequency in the range of 0.1Hz to All of the photographic emulsion development is quite ordinary darkroom work, 80% of it orthographic, 1.5MHz (used mostly between 20Hz and 10kHz). The ability to “tune” the high voltage electricity to match the allowing the use of a red light during work, which helps greatly with safety when dealing with these high characteristics of various materials is vital for such difficult materials as plastic. voltages. The panchromatic films were stand developed using Rodinal, because the high accutance edge Metals conduct electricity easily, their atomic lattice shuffling electrons around with the greatest of ease. contrast works well for the sparks, and I am lazy and don’t like to agitate the film. This body of images were Other materials like carbon are conductive, with some resistance, which is sometimes used to make unfortunately made in a metalworking workshop, converted to a darkroom space at night, with all the dust resistors in varying values. Materials such as plastics can be used as capacitors, being able to variously and grit playing havoc with exposures, and necessitating some photoshop editing time after scanning. There contain electricity, having characteristics that change with frequency in certain circuits. All materials have was also the issue of this workshop being off-grid, running solar in mid winter, in South-West Tasmania, on a capacitive nature to some degree, as well as varying resistive, inductive and even magnetic natures - a 350 acre bush block populated with tall gums. Electricity can become very precious. All the water used electricity is messy in the real world. Everything reacts electrically, in complex ways, feeding back into a was collected by bucket from a creek bordering my property, the film washed with a crazy set of aquarium circuit to change the signal, reflecting electrical fields out into the surrounding area, and changing over time, pumps in staggered recirculating trays, and dried on an ad-hoc clothes line next to a wood fire stove. Nightly or through temperature and humidity. It is much more complex than a simple current passing along a wire. temps of -4°C meant the fire needed to be going a while before developing, so the chemicals would be up Many insulative materials like wood or plastic can be made to conduct a high frequency signal - part of their to temperature. But the elemental beauty of the place, the deep night darkness, the clarity of the air, and the capacitative nature or ability to soak up electrons. The charge is “passed”, or shunted along in small steps screech of Tassie devils somewhere up the hill, all resonated perfectly with the abstract purity of the task, - the high frequency signal vibrating within their electrically over-soaked structure. This is all assuming you delving deep into the heart of matter with vibrating pulses of high voltage electricity. Lots of fun. follow the standard model of reality with electrons orbiting around atom nucleii, which in my lazy brain, I most often do. The complexities extend as one takes into account the effect of electrical fields as they expand outwards from the movement of any charge, impacting upon and reacting to nearby flows, and feeding back in damped reactive loops of effect. Such interactions can be seen in some of the discharge images as subtle transverse tendencies where minor spark arcs cross stronger lines perpendicularly. As all the images are exposed on 8x10 large format film, the details can be quite complex, overwhelming, and totally beautiful.

The basic physical setup consists of a large copper plate (600 x 600mm, 3mm thick) which is in some situations is connected to ground. Otherwise, it is connected to one side of the circuit - usually one side of the step-up coil. The photographic film is placed on top of the copper plate, the subject on top of the film, and a connection is made to the top surface of the subject - usually with a copper or graphite electrode - connecting to the other side of the step-up coil. In terms of conventionally assigned current, positive connections to the subject will produce a longer, cleaner spark, while positive at the copper plate will produce a less vigorous but more subtle, feathered discharge. This of course is only when dealing with predominantly DC circuits. With a simple DC battery based circuit, small 12V batteries are connected in series to create 150-600 volts, and a small value resistor placed in front of a decent highly rated switch, a high voltage bipolar capacitor in the range of 1-40uF, and a step-up transformer - most simply an old spark ignition coil (autotransformer) from a car ignition. The switch operates the connection to the capacitor. When switched on, the capacitor stores charge, and when switched off, it drops it, and this radical change in voltage and movement of charge induces a field in the step-up transformer, which creates a sympathetic high voltage spike (and decaying resonant peak determined by the circuit) in the output coil - this is the spark discharge output. The capacitor and the coil of the step-transformer create a tuned circuit, which is also effected by the complex interactions with the material sample. I am no good with formulas (or many other rational considerations, really) so ended up fudging around with various values (especially the capacitor values) to get an intuitive grip on it all. It must be remembered that each component is not as simple as it seems - such as capacitors, which have small resistive and inductive natures also, and as such, vary tremendously in effect across the same value. With capacitors, the speed of discharge is very important in this circuit, leading me to trialing large electrolytic motor-start capacitors, connecting banks of parallel polypropylene capacitors, “We want a principle, a system, an integration, and we want elements, atoms, numbers. We want them, and we make them. A single God, and identifiable individuals.... The arithmetic of whole numbers remains a secret foundation of our understanding; we’re all Pythagorians.” - Michel Serres, Genesis, 1982.